Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Holding a line again...kinda

I couldn't stand another month of reserve. I could have held a line....kinda...back in December. I bid reserve to have part of Christmas off and New Years eve off. I could have held a line in January...but I bet I'd be better off on reserve...I wasn't.

For February I had enough. I bid almost every possible line including a composite line.

At my gig a composite line is made up of pieces of other lines and reserve days. The pieces come from flying dropped by pilots on vacation, reserve or other leaves.

I emailed scheduling the open sequences I wanted and they honored almost all of my request. I have every Sunday off and all but on Saturday off. Not too bad. That one Saturday is my only reserve day.

The gauranty is only 72 hours vs 75 hours for reserve...but I am able to add on more flying to this composite line much easier than reserve.

For reserve pilots, extra flying can only be done on days off. For line holders (including composite!), extra flying can be on working days as long as it fits in the FARs.

I've built up my line to 78 hours and only working one extra day. I hope to add more.

I will likely bid a composite again next month. I will be 40 next month. Time flies.

Even though I attempt to hide who I am and who I work for...quite a few people have figured it out. Bleh. Still safer to not blatantly post it.

Thanks for the blogging over the years! I've been reading it since before I started training and it has been a useful window into my future career. I'm now at the CFI level and the airlines don't seem so far away. Anyways keep it up I think it really does have a positive effect on future Pilots!